CUBAN HEAT: Musical about Gloria and Emilio Estefan dances to the stage

By R. Scott Reedy/For The Patriot Ledger

Wednesday

Apr 11, 2018 at 3:22 PMApr 15, 2018 at 6:49 PM

If you’re an up-and-coming Latin music artist looking to move from singer to superstar, Emilio Estefan is the man you probably want to show you the way.

A former President of Sony Music, Estefan has helped develop and shape the careers of not only Gloria Estefan, his wife, but also Marc Anthony, Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, Jon Secada and Shakira.

The career ascent of Estefan, a 19-time Grammy Award-winning performer and producer, began more than 40 years ago when he joined forces, professionally and personally, with the former Gloria Farjado. Emilio and Gloria were married on September 2, 1978.

“We were two poor kids with a lot of dreams. We got married for the right reason, however, and we have a beautiful marriage with a lot of respect and communication. I’ve been blessed to marry the woman that I love,” said Estefan, the father of two and grandfather of one.

The Cuban-American couple’s journey from struggling performers to music royalty is chronicled in the hit Broadway musical “On Your Feet!” which comes to the Boston Opera House next week on its first national tour.

“Our story is like many people’s stories. We are lucky to live in a time that is so beautiful. The story of ‘On Your Feet!’ is about persistence. It’s also about family and never giving up on your dreams – and, because we live in the greatest country in the world, not having to change your name,” explained Estefan by telephone recently from the couple’s home in Miami Beach.

Born 65 years ago in Santiago de Cuba, the second-largest city in Cuba, Estefan was 11 years old when he left his homeland with his father, Emilio Estefan, Sr., spending much of his childhood separated from his mother, brother, and other family members.

He and his father lived in near poverty in Spain before arriving in Miami to begin life in the United States. The young Estefan attended night school, and started the band Miami Latin Boys in 1976.

“Sometimes you’re forced to confront life at an early age,” said Estefan. “I could be bitter, but I made a decision to convert everything negative in my life to something positive. I learned a lot from being lonely and poor as a child.”

His family was ultimately reunited in Miami and when singer/songwriter Gloria and her cousin, the late Merci Navarro, joined the renamed Miami Sound Machine as vocalists, Emilio soon found himself not only surviving, but prospering.

Hits like “Conga,” “Anything for You,” “Don’t Wanna Lose You,” “Get On Your Feet,” and “Rhythm Is Gonna Get You” helped make Gloria Estefan – first with Miami Sound Machine and later as a solo artist – the most successful Latin crossover performer in the history of pop music and a seven-time Grammy Award winner.

With success, however, came challenges. On March 20, 1990, the singer’s tour bus collided with a semi-truck outside Scranton, Penn., leaving her critically injured with a fractured spine and an uncertain future.

“I can still remember being on a medical transport helicopter the next day with Gloria and our son, Nayib, who was just 10 at the time, flying from a hospital in Pennsylvania to the NYU Langone Medical Center in Manhattan.

“It was very gray for most of the trip and then, all of a sudden, I could feel bright sun in my eyes,” said Estefan. “So I grabbed a scrap of paper and wrote ‘coming out of the dark’ on it.”

At his wife’s side while she recovered from surgery and endured intensive physical therapy, he said he monitored her progress closely.

“About six months into Gloria’s recovery, Dick Clark started calling regularly. He wanted Gloria to make her return to performing on the American Music Awards. I would wake up every day thinking, ‘Everything is going to work out,’ but Gloria is more analytical.

“She wanted to be sure that she could handle a public performance,” he said.

Once Gloria agreed to perform, Emilio said the pair decided it should be a new song. He then remembered the words he’d scribbled down during that helicopter ride months earlier.

“Together with Jon Secada, Gloria and I wrote ‘Coming Out of the Dark’ in about five minutes. With that song, we proved once again that to come out of hard times, you have to believe that everything is going to be OK.”

Today, Estefan produces live events like the Latin Grammy Awards as well as documentary and feature films. He said he was both grateful and relieved that everything went so well that January 1991 night when his wife made her triumphant return to the stage.

“I was crying like a baby, because I knew if something went wrong, Gloria was going to kick my ass,” said the proud husband with a laugh.

“The first time we read the book Alexander Dinelaris (“Birdman”) wrote for the show, we were both in tears. The parts dealing with my separation from my family and Gloria’s relationship with her mother really got to us.

“On opening night, not long after we took our seats, we were both crying.”

Some of those were tears of joy for the couple, whose daughter, singer/songwriter and musician Emily Estefan – a graduate of Boston’s Berklee College of Music, where her parents serve as trustees – co-wrote a new song, “If I Never Got to Tell You,” with her mother for the musical.

“On tour, as we did in New York, we have Miami Sound Machine musicians in the percussion section and on horns to give the show a truly authentic sound,” said Estefan.

“We brought Latino music to Broadway. This was also the first Broadway show to have a 99 percent Latino cast. We’re both very proud of that.”